In the lives of two Blacks
by MadClairvoyant
Summary: Regulus Black is but a child, caught in the middle of things he doesn't quite understand; he is a piece is a game. Bellatrix is the player. (Written for the 7spells LJ community, with Prompt Set 3)
1. The cruelest month

June was the cruelest month in the year, he thinks. School has just ended, and their (no, his,) parents, were being particularly overbearing. After months of faux freedom, it stung to be back in their control. Mother was being especially nasty, her voice shrill in the air, ringing endless, wordless screams.

June was the month his brother had walked out without even a goodbye.

June was the month she took it out on him.

Bellatrix was a fierce girl; she had always been one. Quick with vitriol and curses, everyone feared, or respected her. She was popular, in all the wrong ways, and she was both feared and well liked. And she was very much like someone he knew.

He wondered if he clung to her because he was afraid of losing his memory of someone, someone so much like her. If she knew, she never said anything.

When she kissed him, she was harsh and demanding, almost angry. He knew whom she was thinking of when she did it, but he never said anything.

June was the cruelest month, because there was always a ghost between them.


	2. Effect of impact on stationary objects

When he was born, he was like a miniature of his older brother, and everyone said that they could be twins, and he was the perfect spare to the family.

Unfortunately, by the time he was six, they realized that he was _nothing _like his brother. Whilst Sirius burned with the hidden family fire, Regulus was quiet and still. Sirius, like Bellatrix, was movement, like fire that wavered and swelled and burned so bright. Regulus was cold and still, like water.

It was hard to be still around the two of them. Often, he felt left out, sitting quietly at the side, all but forgotten.

It was at thirteen when Bellatrix first noticed him. She was seventeen, in her last year, and hardly different from when she was seven and set fire to one of their numerous relatives. It was at one of those useless family gatherings when she noticed him crouched in the shadows, staring blankly at the glittering lights. Sitting next to him, she gave him that achingly familiar grin, mad and reckless, so he pretended he couldn't see the edge of cruelty in her eyes when she kissed him.

For once, someone had actually bothered to notice him, and he felt so alive, as her wild momentum carried him along, and he pretended that she wasn't carrying him over the edge of the cliff.


	3. Violin

He was an instrument, and she was the player.

With long, slender fingers, she spins across him, controlling him like a puppet master does to a broken marionette.

He dances to her tune again and again, unable to break free of her spell.

She is often drunk on her power, playing him viciously, forming a melody from his screams.


	4. Draw the line in the sand

This was a simple game that they played often in the family. There were very little rules, really, and those that existed were shady; merely lines, drawn in the sand. A gently breeze, a fierce fire, and the rules were gone.

For instance, there was the Christmas of 74', where they were too many relatives and too much alcohol, and so much cheer. Naturally, the younger children even managed to sneak a couple of shots, and from that, they were tipsy enough to wander off into the garden, where they had gathered. The five of them sat in a circle, staring at each other, before the eldest boy stood up, mumbling vaguely about getting more alcohol, and bolting out. The middle girl, uncomfortable with the heat, dragged her younger sister with her as they went back in, ready to brave the relatives in return for a few moments of comfort.

Awkwardly, he shifted from side to side before stammering to her. "I…I need to go back in!" before scrambling up, cursing the fact that he could never get the easy elegance that the rest of his cousins were born with. Unfortunately, judging by the sly smile on Bellatrix's face, there was no way he was leaving for a very long while. Gulping, he wondered what the older girl wanted. Perhaps she would leave him alone after a few hexes? Or would she give him a black eye?

Stalking towards him with an unnerving, feline grace, Regulus stared warily at her. What did she want? Her fey, dark eyes drilled holes into his mind, and she smiled, leaning forward to whisper, her hot breath caressing his ear, a seductive trail of words worming its way into his mind.

"Want to play a game?"


	5. Supernova

Each and everyone of them are named after a star; they are to be bright, sparkling. They were destined to be brilliant.

She is a force to be reckoned with; fierce, frightening, and she keeps him under her thumb easily. Her star, the warrior star, burns with an intensity that blinds him and the violence scares him into a corner, and yet, she always lures him back in with sweet words and false promises.

He goes quietly in the end, but she, the brightest and most Black of all, explodes in a stunning supernova.

(He thinks supernovas are pretty, and admires them, but it is a sad way to die, because nothing is left behind.)


	6. Did you see what I did?

She was born a Black, and intended to remain one.

There was nothing more important to her but blood and family name; naturally, she wanted to remain a scion of one of the most powerful Houses in politics. And to do so, she had to marry one of her cousins.

The eldest objected, very vehemently. "If you want to stay a Black, don't marry. No one is going to marry a shrew like you anyway."

So she turned to the younger, more gullible of the two. He had always been little Reg, fading into the background, like an incomplete version of his brother. But now, that malleability was to her advantage, easy to bully, to manipulate, to trick him into loving her; into thinking that she loved him.

And when she succeeded, the pesky Black pride prevented her from hiding it. She just couldn't resist showing off her talents, and she burned with a fierce desire to announce her victory.

At the first breakfast of the year in Hogwarts, she laid one elegant hand on Regulus, (with long red nails, strangely resembling a claw), and smiled innocently at the familiar face at the opposite table. When the heavy oak doors slammed shut in his fury, she excused herself from the table and padded out of the room, ignoring the puzzled look the younger boy shot her.

Turning round the corner, she spotted him punching the wall angrily, with blood flowing off his abused knuckles, causing her laugh delightedly. As he swung around to punch her, she raised her hand to catch his fist, and leant forward to whisper.

"Did you see what I did?"


	7. Candle in the window

There was a candle in the east wing.

Hardly anyone went into the east wing anymore, let alone the attic. It was derelict and deserted, with old, faded silk hangings and tarnished silver frames, whose canvas had long rotted. Cobwebs spanned the old dusty corners, casting strange shadows when slivers of moonlight pass through the window glass, which was covered by layers upon layers of dust motes. The old, ancient trunks were discarded carelessly on the ground, causing the gaping floorboards to creak ominously. Pieces of old parchment with carefully inked words were scattered over the once grand beddings, their decomposition bringing about a heavy stench of failed plans and dreams.

Standing in the darkness, one could see the state of disrepair of the once grand room, and feel the overwhelming sense of loneliness; something was forgotten and abandoned.

However, there was one strange window in the very last room at the end. It was smaller than its counterparts, with the furnishings all a drab and ominous black. Whatever light that managed to reach the room was absorbed by the dark colours, swallowing any bit of hope and happiness. And yet, all the way at the back of the room, there was a tiny window, made of frosted glass, and allowing very little light to reach its occupants. But the strange about this window was that to some who saw it, there was a tiny candle, with a fragile flame that flickered endlessly.

In old family lore, this room had once belonged to a young master who had been locked up here; put away for being a Squib. But before he was sealed away and left to starve in the darkness, an old house elf had taken pity on him and enchanted the window to have a single flame. Clever as the creature was, it made sure that only the hopeless and frightened could see it, such that the cruel Master and Mistress of the house would not discover the child's only comfort.

The children loved this wing; it was an extension of the house that the adults never frequented, and hence it allowed them a certain privacy that was rare with such a large family. Besides, it was so mysterious to them; a real haunted house, where every step seemed to be watched with hundreds of invisible eyes.

Sirius loved the master bedroom, and standing in the middle of the devastation, with the scarce light casting strange shadows on his sharp features, Regulus thought he looked suitably tragic; a master of the house who had lost everything.

Andromeda loved the humble room at the end of the corridor. It was just like her; plain, simple, and quietly rebellious against the forgotten grandeur of the rest of the house.

Narcissa loved the young mistress' room; it was oddly bright with its pastel colours, and even stranger, the muted colours brought no warmth of comfort to mind. In the old wardrobe, there were fancy dresses of the best silk and beautiful tassels, made in the style of the 18th century, and there was nothing the blonde loved more than wearing those old silks and walking around with her head held high like a princess.

Bellatrix favoured the last room, the small miserable one, and Regulus thought it suited her as well as the grand bedroom did Sirius. There were unexplainable shadows in the room that seem to creep up on her, shrouding her in the darkness, bleeding the colour out of her pale skin even further, and her red lips darkening to slash of black. Regulus was drawn to her darkness, unable to escape her thrall, and yet it frightened him

And when it did, he turned to look at the unremarkable window at the end.

There was a candle in the east wing, and he could see it.


End file.
